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Communicating and judging through stories
Summary
This page looks at how scenarios allow people to relate to the
possible evolution of the business and its products and
services. The Long view process is highlighted.
Value based customer
segmentation is reviewed. Keirsey's psychological
categorization and 'crossing
the chasm, Geoffrey Moore describes target customer archetypes. His 'Innovator' is a Keirsey personality segmentation rational. His 'Visionary' is an artisan. His 'Pragmatists and Conservatives' are guardians. ' are highlighted.
Three alternate systems are framed as long view scenarios (1)
development of a billing
mediation business, (2) development of the Grameen Bank the
first micro loan bank and (3) some classic chess games.
Some of the scenarios will be referenced in the The page describes the SWOT
process. That includes:
- The classification
of each event into strength weakness opportunity and
threat.
- The clustering
process for grouping the classified events into goals.
- How the clusters
can support planning and execution.
Operational SWOT matrices and clusters from the Adaptive Web
Framework (AWF) are included as examples.
SWOT and This page looks at schematic structures
and their uses. It discusses a number of examples:
- Schematic ideas are recombined in creativity.
- Similarly designers take ideas and
rules about materials and components and combine them.
- Schematic Recipes help to standardize operations.
- Modular components are combined into strategies
for use in business plans and business models.
As a working example it presents part of the contents and schematic
details from the Adaptive Web Framework (AWF)'s
operational plan.
Finally it includes a section presenting our formal
representation of schematic goals.
Each goal has a series of associated complex adaptive system (CAS) strategy strings.
These goals plus strings are detailed for various chess and business
examples.
planning
pages of this frame. In particular the complex adaptive
system ( We are products of complexity,
but our evolution has focused our
understanding on the situation of hunter gatherers on the
African savanna.
As humanity has become more powerful we can significantly impact
the systems we depend on. But we struggle to comprehend
them. So this web frame
explores significant real world complex
adaptive systems (CAS):
- Assumptions of randomness & equilibrium allowed the
wealthy & powerful to expand the size and leverage of
stock markets, by placing at risk the insurance and
retirement savings of the working class. The
assumptions are wrong but remain entrenched.
- The US nation was built
from two divergent political
views of: Jefferson and Hamilton. It also
reflects the development
of competing ancient ideas of Epicurus and
Cyril. But the collapse of Bretton Woods forced Wall
Street into a position of power, while the middle and
working class were abandoned by the elites. Housing
financed with cash from oil and derivative transactions
helped hide the shift.
- Most US health care is still
operating the way cars built in the 1940s did.
Geisinger is an example of better solution. But
transforming the whole network is a challenge. And
public health investment has proved far more
beneficial.
- Helping our children learn to be
effective adults is part of our humanity, but we have
created a robust but deeply flawed education system.
Better alternatives have emerged.
- Spoken language, reading and writing emerged allowing our
good ideas to
become a second genetic material.
- The emergence
of the global economy in the 1600s and its subsequent
development;
It explains how the examples relate to each other, why we all
have trouble effectively comprehending these systems and
explains how our inexperience with CAS can lead to catastrophe. It
outlines the items we see as key to the system and why.
CAS) goals used will be
referenced by the planning pages schemetic
goals.
Introduction
The current situation is represented as a This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
network of The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models
of potentially relevant Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents and
significant This page discusses the physical foundations of complex adaptive
systems (CAS). A small set of
rules is obeyed. New [epi]phenomena then emerge. Examples are
discussed.
rules present in the
proximate This page discusses the potential of the vast state space which
supports the emergence of complex
adaptive systems (CAS). Kauffman describes the mechanism
by which the system expands across the space.
environment. It is
augmented with alternative scenarios of the near term future to
provide a map for strategic analysis.
By capturing Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information
model. Signals can indicate decision
summaries and level of uncertainty.
signals associated with
the current This page discusses the potential of the vast state space which
supports the emergence of complex
adaptive systems (CAS). Kauffman describes the mechanism
by which the system expands across the space.
environment and then
developing The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models of the evolving
future, potential This page looks at schematic structures
and their uses. It discusses a number of examples:
- Schematic ideas are recombined in creativity.
- Similarly designers take ideas and
rules about materials and components and combine them.
- Schematic Recipes help to standardize operations.
- Modular components are combined into strategies
for use in business plans and business models.
As a working example it presents part of the contents and schematic
details from the Adaptive Web Framework (AWF)'s
operational plan.
Finally it includes a section presenting our formal
representation of schematic goals.
Each goal has a series of associated complex adaptive system (CAS) strategy strings.
These goals plus strings are detailed for various chess and business
examples.
strategies to
achieve goals can
be evaluated.
The collection of environmental signals typically results in
some type of labeled classification of models of the current
situation. For example in the relatively constrained
environment of This page discusses the tagging of signals
in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
Tagged signals can be used to control filtering of an event
stream. Examples of CAS filters are reviewed.
Chess the initial
moves of each player are categorized into labeled networks of
openings such as the Sicilian, French
and Queen's Gambit. As the initial moves are played the
classifications allow rapid The page reviews how complex systems can be analyzed.
The resulting analysis supports evaluation of system
events.
The analysis enables categorization of different events into
classes.
The analysis helps with recombination of the models to enable
creativity.
The page advocates an iterative approach including support from models.
analysis of
the situation.
Most other systems are more complex. The data capture,
categorization and analysis are even less clear cut.
Peter Schwartz's "long
view" process enables the development of a number of
stories (scenarios) that describe vividly how the future might
unfold. Each scenario suggests " This page discusses the tagging of signals
in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
Tagged signals can be used to control filtering of an event
stream. Examples of CAS filters are reviewed.
flags"
that can be looked for to detect that the scenario is indeed how
the world is developing. Each scenario should aim to
illustrate its use of complex adaptive system ( We are products of complexity,
but our evolution has focused our
understanding on the situation of hunter gatherers on the
African savanna.
As humanity has become more powerful we can significantly impact
the systems we depend on. But we struggle to comprehend
them. So this web frame
explores significant real world complex
adaptive systems (CAS):
- Assumptions of randomness & equilibrium allowed the
wealthy & powerful to expand the size and leverage of
stock markets, by placing at risk the insurance and
retirement savings of the working class. The
assumptions are wrong but remain entrenched.
- The US nation was built
from two divergent political
views of: Jefferson and Hamilton. It also
reflects the development
of competing ancient ideas of Epicurus and
Cyril. But the collapse of Bretton Woods forced Wall
Street into a position of power, while the middle and
working class were abandoned by the elites. Housing
financed with cash from oil and derivative transactions
helped hide the shift.
- Most US health care is still
operating the way cars built in the 1940s did.
Geisinger is an example of better solution. But
transforming the whole network is a challenge. And
public health investment has proved far more
beneficial.
- Helping our children learn to be
effective adults is part of our humanity, but we have
created a robust but deeply flawed education system.
Better alternatives have emerged.
- Spoken language, reading and writing emerged allowing our
good ideas to
become a second genetic material.
- The emergence
of the global economy in the 1600s and its subsequent
development;
It explains how the examples relate to each other, why we all
have trouble effectively comprehending these systems and
explains how our inexperience with CAS can lead to catastrophe. It
outlines the items we see as key to the system and why.
CAS) schematic
goals. These goals are described in the This page looks at schematic structures
and their uses. It discusses a number of examples:
- Schematic ideas are recombined in creativity.
- Similarly designers take ideas and
rules about materials and components and combine them.
- Schematic Recipes help to standardize operations.
- Modular components are combined into strategies
for use in business plans and business models.
As a working example it presents part of the contents and schematic
details from the Adaptive Web Framework (AWF)'s
operational plan.
Finally it includes a section presenting our formal
representation of schematic goals.
Each goal has a series of associated complex adaptive system (CAS) strategy strings.
These goals plus strings are detailed for various chess and business
examples.
ideas and plans page.
With a "most likely" scenario identified resource, technology
and quality This page looks at schematic structures
and their uses. It discusses a number of examples:
- Schematic ideas are recombined in creativity.
- Similarly designers take ideas and
rules about materials and components and combine them.
- Schematic Recipes help to standardize operations.
- Modular components are combined into strategies
for use in business plans and business models.
As a working example it presents part of the contents and schematic
details from the Adaptive Web Framework (AWF)'s
operational plan.
Finally it includes a section presenting our formal
representation of schematic goals.
Each goal has a series of associated complex adaptive system (CAS) strategy strings.
These goals plus strings are detailed for various chess and business
examples.
plans can be scoped
appropriately.
Customer value
and segmentation
The scenarios should involve real customers' needs and
wants. They also benefit from being organized by a
segmentation strategy. At AWF we use a personality
segmentation, Keirsey, Myers-Briggs and Aristotle have noted a personality segmentation reflecting individual/group orientation and theory/practice orientation. Keirsey named the four segments: Rational (i, t), Idealist (g, t), Guardian (g, p) and Artisan (i, p). He builds the segmentation from observation of tool use: cooperative or utilitarian; and word use: Concrete or Abstract. Geoffrey Moore's chasm crossing strategy can be seen to leverage this personality segmentation. based on values following Keirsey.
It's an approach that maps directly to Geoffrey Moore's Crossing
the Chasm segmentation. So we would expect early
focus on rational technologists with a value proposition aimed
at them. This would be followed by targeting of an artisan
visionary. Hence the scenarios should be about some of
these targets personally known to the scenario developers, or
failing that really well documented strangers as in the case of
our use of the development of Grameen Bank on
this page.
A series of history based stories
Below are some details that aim to set the scene and provide
reference for strategic actions. The scenarios include:
Long view
details of the mobile communications industry
In 1999 I had to decide how much resource should be allocated to
the development of 2.5G
and 3G billing mediation is a technology which connects a usage report from a piece of network equipment to a billing, configuration or auditing system. 2.5G, 3G and 4G are generation ids of types of architecture of wireless network equipment. projects at Hewlett-Packard's
Cupertino Factory. The best answer would take into account
how rapidly mobile network
operators is responsible for the operation of a wide area physical network. The network may be wireless or wire line. It typically has subscribers who pay to send voice or data packets over the network. deployed data networks, the associated billing
infrastructure and how many of the deployments selected our
solution.
Wireless data situation
With the data we gathered about the world economy is a human SuperOrganism complex adaptive system (CAS) which operates and controls trade flows within a rich niche. Economics models economies. Robert Gordon has described the evolution of the American economy. Like other CAS, economic flows are maintained far from equilibrium by: demand, financial flows and constraints, supply infrastructure constraints, political and military constraints; ensuring wealth, legislative control, legal contracts and power have significant leverage through evolved amplifiers. , the growth of the
Internet and world-wide-web, and the technical nature of
cellular networks our stories indicated most of the significant
problems that played out in the period between 1999 and 2001,
except September 11 of course.
The initiation of 3G wireless spectrum sales launched all
scenarios. These auctions were designed to leverage the positive returns, W. Brian Arthur's conception of how high tech products have positive economic feedback as they deploy. Classical products such as foods have negative returns to scale since they take increasing amounts of land, and distribution infrastructure to support getting them to market. High tech products typically become easier to produce or gain from platform and network effects of being connected together overcoming the negative effects of scale.
economics of This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
networks. The
operator with the most coverage would typically capture the most
subscribers. Network operators would be keen to bid for
the broadest areas of coverage. The politicians realized
that they could capitalize on this by forcing the operators into
a bidding war. Capital is the sum total nonhuman assets that can be owned and exchanged on some market according to Piketty. Capital includes: real property, financial capital and professional capital. It is not immutable instead depending on the state of the society within which it exists. It can be owned by governments (public capital) and private individuals (private capital).
was transferred from the operators to the various
governments.
The incumbent wireless network operators is responsible for the operation of a wide area physical network. The network may be wireless or wire line. It typically has subscribers who pay to send voice or data packets over the network.
were in a bind. It was necessary to obtain the rights to
deploy wireless data networks. But it was not known how
they would get subscribers to pay for 'data'. SMS messages
were hugely profitable for the operators, so they were the
Twinkie that justified some optimism. It was expected that
voice revenues would drop over Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
time
due to fierce competition.
Network
equipment providers, designed built financed and deployed network equipment to network operators. Equipment included voice switches to support telephone calls, data switches to support data network applications to PCs and cell phones, as well as call control systems which told the switches when to break or disallow the connection to a subscriber. were pleased to provide data switches
and services to extend the operators networks for data.
However, with the data that people were interested residing on
the global wire line, a network connection from a network operator to a subscriber device which uses a physical wire to transfer the data packets or voice circuit. It is an alternative to wireless connections where data is transferred over a radio connection.
Internet it was likely that Cisco would use its TCP (TCP), a point-to-point connection oriented protocol specified and standardized by IETF and widely implemented in Internet communications. /IP (IP), a datagram based connectionless protocol specified by the IETF. It can be used by TCP as its network layer protocol when sending and receiving data packets. routing capabilities and
lower cost structure to become a major competitor to the
incumbent network equipment providers such as Nortel, Lucent,
Alcatel etc. Once an operator had chosen an equipment
provider it was likely to be entrenched for the lifetime of the
switches. Entrenched competitors used This page reviews the strategy of bundling multiple products
within a single offer in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). The
mechanism is discussed with examples from biology and
business.
bundling, offering
to fund the network infrastructure as long as they would also
obtain the service contract. In effect as the operators
captured revenue from their subscribers, they would pass on some
to the equipment providers who would then pay off the capital
costs of the equipment they had provided. The deployments
would likely fly into operation. But how would the
subscribers be billed, and what value would they obtain from the
networks?
Most wire line Internet use was to access the web. The
content was typically free. But cell phones needed to gateway is a transform which allows interconnection of two different types of networks. to the web
pages. Network operators typically controlled the
capabilities of cell phones running on their networks.
Could the operators constrain their subscribers to accept paying
to gain wireless access to the web pages? Paying for
products with cell phones would require a totally new way of
bundling the network access and the product offer. Movies and music is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. would need much
improved cell phones, high capacity networks and clear
indications of delivery of the content and ability of the
subscriber to pay for this relatively valuable content.
It would be 2007 before the iPhone finally provided consumers
with a broadly accepted solution. In 1999 Nokia, Sony,
Ericsson and UnwiredPlanet thought they would extend the
ubiquitous cell phone oligopoly, groups who together control the majority of market share in a market. If they act together they can exert monopoly control of the market.
into owning access to the new wireless data networks.
Wireless data scenarios
In the aggressive scenario use of wireless data would grow
rapidly, and charging would be accepted by the network's
subscribers. The expected reduction in voice revenues
would be replaced by data revenues and the wireless network
operators would be keen to deploy flexible billing solutions to
capture payments for use of the new features.
A less aggressive scenario would find subscribers adopting
wireless data but their expectations would be set by the free
fixed Internet which would limit the ability of the network
operators to capture revenue for the data services. The
deployment of billing would proceed but the failure to replace
collapsing voice revenues would limit the capital investment
base of the wireless network operators. Testing out of the
core network was likely to continue for some time.
A further pessimistic scenario assumed that the operators would
fail to identify effective billing strategies but would be
forced to buy spectrum and deploy networks. This would
encourage the operators to leverage low cost solutions offered
by their incumbent providers. Over time the collapse of
voice revenues would undermine the operators and the network
equipment providers causing a slowdown in deployment.
The assumed likely scenario implied that the interest in
wireless data based application billing would pull flexible
solutions into the market and then quickly peak and then
stall. It allowed us to Agents can manage uncertainty by limiting
their commitments of resources until the environment contains signals strongly correlated with the
required scenario. This page explains how agents can use Shewhart cycles and SWOT processes to do this.
cap the
allocation of resources to match the preconditions.
The announcements of new handsets, services, and billing
requirements from the operators then provided Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information
model. Signals can indicate decision
summaries and level of uncertainty.
signals for us to assess which
scenario was playing out, and how we should adjust our
plans.
Muhammad
Yunus Banker to the Poor
3 Back in Chittagong
Yunus aimed to help manage and capitalize a capital intensive
irrigation system (a deep tube-well) to allow farmers to
leverage this existing infrastructure. Still he discovered
that the benefits were not accrued equally be all
participants. Once the farmers had succeeded in growing
extra rice due to the irrigation it had to be harvested.
Destitute day labor was paid very little to do this hard
physical work. Being landless and asset-less they had to
accept the offer. Yunus realized they would never escape
their position in this system and neither would their
offspring.
Yunus concludes 'My experience with Jobra's deep tube-well
convinced me to turn my focus on the landless poor. Soon I
started arguing that wherever a poverty alleviation program
allowed the non-poor to be co-passengers, the poor would soon be
elbowed out of the program by those who were better off.
In the world of development, if one mixes the poor and the
non-poor in a program, the non-poor will always drive out the
poor, and the less poor will drive out the more poor, unless
protective measures are instituted right at the beginning.
In such cases, the non-poor reap the benefits of all that is
done in the name of the poor.'
5 A Pilot Project is
Born
Not being a banker Yunus was able to define new structures that
were better matched to his borrowers than lump sum repayment
schedules. He comments 'In structuring our credit program,
I decided to do exactly the opposite of traditional banks.
To overcome the psychological barrier of parting with large
sums, I decided to institute a daily payment program. I
made the loan payments so small that borrowers would barely miss
the money. And for ease of accounting, I decided to ask
that the loans be paid back fully in one year. Thus a 365
taka loan could be repaid at the rate of 1 taka a day over the
course of one year.
Yunus developed his own
delivery-recovery mechanism Walter Shewhart's iterative development process is found in many
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
The mechanism is reviewed and its value in coping with random
events is explained.
iteratively,
changing ideas and procedures with experience and growth
feedback. He cites the example of Flows of different kinds are essential to the operation of
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Example flows are outlined. Constraints on flows support
the emergence of the systems.
Examples of constraints are discussed.
enforcing the formation of local
self-support groups, not allowing loans until a nucleus had
formed and all members have achieved bank certification
and then only allowing one loan until that lender and the group
had demonstrated business success and achieved sustained
repayment. The group approves the loan request of any
member prior to the bank's involvement. A nearby cluster
of groups are encouraged to help each other. This ensures:
p71 Social
convention constrains Bangladeshi women
Yunus complains that This page describes the consequences of the asymmetries caused
by eggs being provided with costly resources from its
mother. This presents positional opportunities for the
mother's genes to gain advantage over the father and
offspring.
The effect of this asymmetry is to limit the impacts of both
offspring and father on the mother. The strategies are
outlined.
Bangladesh's
financial institutions are gender biased. It took
six years for Grameen to build up its women borrowers to be half
of its customer base. The Bangladeshi banks have women's
branches. However, they are interested in rich women's
deposits. If even a rich woman wants to borrow money from
a bank, the manager will ask her 'Did you discuss this with your
husband?'. And if she answers yes the manager will say,
'Is he supportive of your proposal?' If the answer is
still 'Yes,' he will say, 'Would you please bring your husband
along so we can discuss it with him.' But complains Yunus
the reverse would never happen. Hence Yunus is not
surprised that Women are less than 1% of borrowers from
Bangladeshi banks. The banking system was created for
men.
p82
Purdah constrains Bangladeshi women
The low cost structure of Grameen is maintained by limiting the
resources utilized by the administrative system. However,
given the exceptional education level of the management
outsiders typically are shocked when the working conditions
become apparent.
Yunus describes a highly capable manager, who has struggled to
obtain her families agreement to her working at Grameen.
However, in part the agreement is due to her explaining her
senior role as a banker. When her brother visits the
Grameen branch he is aghast and the whole family riles at her
directly dealing with the poor in their villages.
Yunus explains how it takes much argument to convince the
woman's mother of the significance of the role. Eventually
as the mother becomes more accustomed she becomes a big
supporter. Still it indicates the This page reviews the inhibiting effect of the value delivery system on the
expression of new phenotypic
effects within an agent.
difficulty
of overcoming the cultural constraints.
6 Expanding beyond Jobra into Tangail
p98
Dedicated young fighters make excellent workers in comparison
to the problems with the agents provided by the Banks
The national bank staff turned out to be highly
unreliable. However, the ex-Gonobahini, an underground Marxist dissident movement 'The People's Army' of Tangail in Bangladesh. Some of them realized that the fledgling Grameen bank was achieving their social goals peacefully. They left the guerrillas and became effective representatives of the bank. , were young,
hardworking and dedicated. They had wanted to liberate the
country with guns and revolution, but instead were pleased to
walk into the same villages extending loans to the
destitute. Yunus argues they just
needed a cause to work for. Equally he found that
these workers were easily able to accept and leverage the
Grameen principles while others with
"experience" in banking struggled with the unusual methods
adopted by Grameen, Deming argued that most new ideas are adopted by new entrants to the field, trained with the new ideas. The incumbents are replaced as they retire, or their positions become non-viable. Just as happened with the germ theory of disease. . Grameen developed an extensive
training program for its staff. All this helped ensure
effectiveness of the Grameen processes.
The legal structure of Grameen early on required Yunus to give a
report monthly to the Central Bank of Bangladesh. The
discussions were long and tedious since the managing directors
of every participating bank could kidnap the direction.
For example when Grameen proposed that its workers be issued
flash lights for walking in the villages at night, one Director
argued that flash lights would destroy traditional village
life!
p111
disruptive system alienates Central Bank
A two year review of Grameen's Tangail activities by the Central
Bank member commercial bank managing directors concluded that
Grameen's success was purely due to:
- Yunus and his staff's devotion. Grameen is not
really a bank said one manager. 'Grameen's staff does
not work banker's hours, and we banks could not replicate
this model. It needs a Yunus at each branch to scale'.
- Banks lend large amounts to smaller numbers of
clients. They did not like the idea of lending the
very small amounts to huge numbers of people.
Yunus was forced to expand the scope of Grameen to show the
Bankers they were wrong. He also had to find the funding
to do so elsewhere. The Ford Foundation provided $890,000
to guarantee Grameen so that the Bangladesh central bank would
not be able to kill the project for risk concerns.
p142
international agencies disconnected eco-net
Yunus is critical of the International aid agencies "style" of
doing business with the poor. When a Grameen clone,
Dungganon, asked for expansion funding from a UN agency This page reviews the inhibiting effect of the value delivery system on the
expression of new phenotypic
effects within an agent.
they responded by sending four missions to
investigate the proposal, spending thousands of dollars on
airline tickets, per diems, and professional fees. There
were bureaucratic complications. The project never received
any funds. In other words, after nearly five years
of specialists reviewing the problem and wasting resources, the
poor islanders were unable to receive a single micro-credit loan
with support from the agency. Yunus pointedly comments
that the cost of one of the missions would have assisted several
hundred poor families.
He complains that the consultancy business has seriously misled
international donor agencies. The assumption is that:
- The recipient countries need to be guided at every stage
of the process - identification, preparation, implementation
of projects.
- Donors and consultants tend to become over bearing in
their attitude towards the countries they help.
- Consultants often have a paralyzing effect on the
initiatives of the recipient countries. Officials and
academics in these countries quickly adopt the figures
mentioned in the donors' documents even if they personally
know that those figures are incorrect.
He argues that 75% of foreign donor assistance to Bangladesh has
been spent outside of the country on: equipment, commodities,
and consultants from the donor country.
p149 incorrect
but widely held assumptions about poverty
Yunus comments that when he talked about micro-credit in the
1980s to World Bank Economists, or Journalists most people
assumed that the Grameen strategy was to alleviate poverty by
providing credit to small businesses, that would expand and hire
the poor. It took people a while he writes for them to see
that Yunus was advocating lending directly to the poor.
Yunus argues that policy makers tend to equate job creation with
poverty reduction and economists measure only one type of
employment -- salaried employment. Since Economists also
tended to focus research and theories on how wealth is created
in former colonial powers.
Poverty was only studied in Developmental Economics, a recent
branch with limited investment.
Yunus comments that economists failed to understand the social
power of credit. In economics credit is seen as a means to
lubricate the wheels of trade, commerce and industry.
Yunus contends that the reality is different -- Credit creates This page reviews the strategy of setting up an arms race. At its
core this strategy depends on being able to alter, or take
advantage of an alteration in, the genome
or equivalent. The situation is illustrated with examples
from biology, high tech and politics.
economic power, which quickly translates
into social power. Credit institutions and banks can
favor a distinct section of the population. That section
increases both its economic and social status. In both
Rich and Poor countries credit institutions have favored the
rich and in so doing have This page reviews the inhibiting effect of the value delivery system on the
expression of new phenotypic
effects within an agent.
pronounced a
death sentence on the poor.
p153 Applications in other poor countries
Yunus describes how a Malaysian clone of Grameen was
developed. Particularly notable were the two key sets of
challenges the clone encountered:
- Building a Grameen program from scratch
- Finding an appropriate legal framework to distance the
program from governmental control without losing financial
support.
The Asia and Pacific development center (APDC) provided seed
funding initially.
As problems piled up the leaders came back to Grameen for
refresher training, and Grameen sent its senior staff to
assist. As the Malaysian organization came to understand
the logic of the Grameen methodologies they modified their
program to more closely match Grameen. The result has been
CASHPOR a Grameen replication programs association which has
brought micro-credit to half of Malaysia's families living below
the poverty line. As a result of these experiences David
Gibbons published the Grameen Reader.
p159 It
depends on your model of a situation what conclusions you come
to
Yunus describes the development of CARD a Filipino program for
the LandlessPeople's Fund of the Center for Agriculture and
Rural Development. While it rapidly gained nine thousand
borrowers, an excellent repayment rate and seven branches, when
Yunus asked the German Government to provide it with expansion
funding the request was turned down. The German agency
argued that CARD was considered a failure. Yunus was keen
to understand why. He was told a thorough study had been
performed and everyone who had read the report agreed that CARD
was not worth funding.
Yunus was not able to get a copy of the report. Keen to
understand the miss-match he reviewed the situation with the
CARD team. Initially they said there had never been a
German study at CARD, but subsequently said a German man, who
did not say he was an evaluator from the German Government had
visited the CARD head office. He had expressed no interest
in visiting with borrowers.
Yunus solution was to get an independent assessment of CARD and
publish the findings. Dr. Mahabub Hossain did the
assessment. He concluded:
- CARD borrowers are very poor; 70% of them are completely
landless and own houses worth less than $550.
- CARD borrowers use their loans for business; 97% of
borrowed money is invested in income-generating
activities.
- CARD loans make a big difference; borrower' average rate
of return on investment is 117%
- CARD generates jobs; economic activities financed by CARD
loans generated 163 days of employment for CARD borrowers
each year and an additional 84 days for other family members
- CARD generates productive employment; the labor
productivity in CARD-financed businesses is 36% higher than
the prevailing wage rate.
Still further assessments by international institutions did not
concur. The United Nations in 1988 released a report about
micro-lending programs that argued:
- Many people, especially the poorest of the poor, are
usually not in a position to undertake an economic activity,
partly because they lack business skills and even the
motivation for business.
- Furthermore, it is not clear if the extent to which
micro-credit has spread, or can potentially spread, can make
a major dent in global poverty.
p167
The issue with international loans
A vice-president of the World Bank Ismail Serageldin was
interested in providing a $98 million loan to Grameen so that it
would be able to finance other micro-loan institutions
worldwide. However, Yunus describes challenges that make
this impossible:
- The World Bank may require a government guarantee for the
loan. There is no reason for a government to make that
guarantee and the Grameen bank does not want to be beholden
to a government decision maker.
- The Grameen bank trust given the loan would not be able to
repay the loan, since their goal is to lend to projects that
operate in local currencies. Even when they get their
full repayment there is no way the local currency will still
correspond to the dollar loan amount. Grameen does not
want to perform the hedging etc. necessary to offset the
currency drifts.
Yunus's solution to obtain $100 million was instead to ask for
pure donations of $100 collected from a million donors.
The management agency, the peoples fund, operating the process
would be financed separately. They would do the
advertising, coordination etc.
10 Applications in the US & other wealthy countries
p189
Micro-credit in Europe clashes with welfare rules
In the US Yunus architecture was criticized almost universally
as inappropriate - the skepticism was based on the belief that
there was nothing that would raise these people out of poverty,
and so solutions must strive to alleviate the symptoms, with the
welfare state blamed for inducing a lazy under-class of
dysfunctional individuals:
- Chicagoans needed jobs, training, healthcare, and
protection from drugs and violence, not micro-loans social
activists, bankers, economists and community leaders
said.
- Self-employment was a primitive concept lingering in the
third world, and Chicago poor had no skills anyway.
- Grameen requires groups which are against the natural
independence of American women.
Yunus, argues that the poor are very creative, and after Bill
Clinton promoted the Grameen concept as Arkansas Governor and
then as President there were some US based examples so he was
able to describe how women in challenging poor Spanish speaking
Chicago communities were over joyed to find friendship, support
of a like-minded group, as well as the freedom from obtaining
credit to become self-supporting.
Yunus describes the tenacity of the European social welfare
system as his greatest nemesis. Over, and over, Grameen
clones run in to the same problem: Recipients of monthly
handouts from the government feel as afraid to start a business
as the purdah-covered women in Bengali villages. Many
calculate the amount of welfare money and insurance coverage
they would lose by becoming self-employed and conclude the risk
is not worth the effort.
...
Often, even when the law allows a poor person to own a business,
charity program operators will not allow it. One young
man, newly out of prison, wanted to start up a French fries
stand. The Parisian charity that housed him would not
accept this independence. Instead, it opened the stand and
hired the man as a salaried employee.
Rosalind Copisarow, a polish graduate of Oxford University and
Wharton school of business, became an executive with J.P.Morgan,
but convinced that micro-credit was what Poland needed she left
the bank and setup to adapt Grameen to Poland. Her team
examined 200 methodologies and tested nine pilot models.
She developed Fundusz Mikro with 20 branches, four thousand
clients and a repayment rate of 98.5% and loans of $10
million.
p191
Group focus creates reinforcing clusters
Yunus argues that with Grameen's group based approach to
developing female entrepreneurs the clusters create friendships,
and support groups, that enhance the attractiveness of the
locality. A variety of schemes are sited that have
encouraged young women to stay in their societies, which has
then resulted in the young males also staying local, reversing
trends of serious depopulation.
Schematic
space of chess move strings
- Game 83 Queen's
Gambit declined Black: Maroczy (B c8 fails to deploy, d5
defended by e6 - neither exchanges d5 in the opening!, 6
... N e4,)
- 1. d4 N f6 2. c4 e6 3. N f3 d5 4. Kt c3 B e7 5.
Bg5 o-o
- 6. e3 Kt e4 Alekhine
comments this defense has been used by Lasker &
Capablanca against Marshall, simplifying the game and
not creating any weaknesses.
- 7. B*B Q*B
- 8.
Q b3 Alekhine justifies this move due to his dislike of
8. p*p(d5) Kt*Kt(c3) 9. p*Kt(c3), p*p(d5) 10. Q b3 R d8
11. c4 Kt c6! as it leaves Black equal. He admits
8. Qc2 was more forceful. Maroczy then must take
the Knight.
- 8
... Kt*Kt(c3) 9. Q*Kt(c3) c6 10. B d3 kt d7 11.
o-o f5
- 12 R(a1) c1! Alekhine makes anticipatory preparations
assuming 12 ... Kt f6 & 13 ... Kt e4.
- 12
...
g5
??
- 13. Kt d2! KR f7?? 14. f3 e5 Alekhine explains how
Black aims to force an exchange of Queens on 18 - but Alekhine has
a clever answer.
- 15. c4*d5 Alekhine starts to attack - clearing the c
file
- 15 ... c6*d5 16. e4! and opening up a central fight
- 16 ... f5*e4 17. f3*e4 R*R(f1)ch
- 18. R*R e5*d4 Black
attacking the White Queen with backup of his
Queen+Knight.
- 19.
Q c7! K g7 20. R f5! d5*e4 21. Kt*e4 Q b4 22. R*p(g5)ch
Black resigns
- Sicilian 1. e4 c5
- Znosko-Borovsky Euwe
London 1922 in Capablanca Primer p141
1. e4 c5 2. N f3 N c6 3. d4
c*d4 4. N*d4 N f6 5. N c3 d6 6. B e2 e6 7. o-o B e7 8. K h1
o-o 9. B e3 B d7 10. f4 Q c7 11. B f3 B d7 12. N(d) b5 Q b8 13
e5 d*e5 14. f* e5 Q*e5 15. R e1 Q b8 16. Q d2 R(f)d8 17. B f4
e5 18. B g3 a6 19. N a3 B g4 20. Q e3 B*f3 21. g*f3 B*a3 22.
b*a3 Q d6
23. B h4
23 ... R e8
24. R g1 N e7 25. R(a) d1 Q
c6 26. B*f6 Q*f6 27. N e4 Q c6 28. N d6 N g6 29. N*e8 Q*e8 30.
Q b6 Q e7 31. R d2 h6 32. R(g)d1 K h7 33. R d7 Q h4 34. Q b3 N
e7 35. R g1 Q f6 36. Q*b7 R c6 37. Q b3 e4 38. Q e3 R e6 39.
f*e4 Q h4 40. e5 Q h5 41. Q e4+ g6 42. Q f4 K g7 43. R f1 N f5
44. R e1 Q h3 45. R d3 Q h5 46. c4 R e7 47. c5 R b7 48. e6 N
h4 49. e7 Q e2 50. Q d4+
- Closed
Defense Armenian at coffee shop
1.e4 c5 2. N c3 N c6 3. g3 g6
4. B b2 B g7 5. d3 d6
6. f4
- Closed Defense Potemkin
Alekhine
1. ef c5 2. g3 g6 3. B g2 B g7
4. N e2 N c6 5. c3 N f6 6. N a3?
6 ... d5 7. e*d5 N*d5 8. N
c2 o-o 9. d4 c*d4 10. c*d4
10 ... B g4 11. f3 B f5
12. N e3
12 ... Q a5+
13. K f2 N(d) b4 14. N*f5 Q*f5 15. g4
15 ... N d3+
16 K g3?
16 ... N*d4! 17. g*f5
N*f5+ 0-1 as
18. K g4 h5+ 19. K h3 N f2++
- 1. e4 c5 2. N f3 d6 3. d4
c*d4 4. N*d4 N f6 5. N c3 g6
- Dragon
Defense Alekhine Botvinnik
6. B e2 B g7 7. B e3 N c6 8. N b3 B e6 9. f4
9 ...
oo
10.
g4
10.
oo d5? 11. e5 N e8 12. B f3 N c7 13. N c5 -> 14.
N*e6 f*e6 since 13 ... d4 is defeated by 14. B*c6
11 ... d4 12. B*d4
10
... d5!
11.
f5
11
... B c8 12. e*d5
12
... N b4
13.
d6?
13.
B f3! g*f5 14. a3 f*g4 15. B g2 N a6
16.
Q d3 e6 17. ooo N*d5 18. h3 g3 19. R(h) g1
19
... Q d6
20.
B*d5 e*d5
21.
N*d5
21
... K h8
22.
B f4 Q g6 23 Q f3!
13
... Q*d6? 14. B c5 Q f4! 15. R f1 Q*h2 16. B*b4 N*g4! 17.
B*g4 Q g3+ 18. R f2 Q g1+ 19. R f1 Q g3+ 20. R f2 Q g1+ =
13
... e*d6! 14. a3 N c6 15. g5 R e8!
16.
g* f6 R *e3 17. f*g7 Q h4+ 18. 18. K d2 Q h6 19. K e1
Black has excellent chances
16.
B d4 N*d4 17. N*d4 N g4 18. f6 B*f6 19. g*f6 Q*f6 20.
R f1 Q h4+ 21. K d2 N e3 22. N f3 Q h6 ++
16.
B f2 N e4 17. N*e4 R*e4 18. f6 B g4 19. N c1 Q a5+ 20.
Q d2 Q e5 21. K f1 Q*b2 22. B *g4 R*g4 23. R a2 Q b5+
24. N e2 R e4 25. f*g7 R*e2 26. Q*e2 Q b1+ with
advantage to Black.
11.
e5
11
... d4! 12. N*d4 N*d4 13. B*d4 N*g4! 14. B*g4 B*g4 and
Black preserves the material balance while gaining the
advantage with regard to space, position and time relative
to the
situation with 10. oo.
10
... N a5
11.
g5 N e8 12. B d4 R c8 13. h4 N c4 14. B*c4 R*c4 15. Q d3
R c8
16.
ooo
Q d7 17. R d2 B g4 18. N d5 b6 19. f5! e6 20. B*g7 K*g7
21. f6+ K h8 22. N e7 R d8 23. N d4 Q a4 24. K b1 N c7
25. h5 g*h5 26. R(d)h2 R d7 27. e5 R*e7 28. R*h5 B*h5
29. R*h5 1-0
- Dragon Topalov Carlsen
Bilbao 2008
6. B e3 B g7
7. f3 N c6
8. Q d2 oo
9. B c4 B d7
10. ooo R c8 11.
B b3 N e5 12. K b1 a6
13. h4 h5 14. g4
h*g 15. h5 N*h5 16. R(d) g1 R c5
17. B h6 K h7 18.
B g7 K g7 19. f4 N c4 20. B*c4 R*c4 21. f5
21 ... e5?
21 ... R h8
22. N(d) e2 R h8
23. b3 R c6 24. R g4 N f6
25. R(g) g1 R h1
26. R h1 N g4 27. N g3 K g8 28. N d5 R c5 29. N e3 N*e3 30.
Q*e3 Q f6 31. Q h6 Q g7 32. Q g5 f6
33. Q d2 R c6
34. K b2
34. Q a5! b6 35. Q a6 R c8
36. Q b7
34 ... g*f 35. Q a5 Q e7 36. Q d5+ B e6 37. Q d1 Q g7 38.
e*f B f7 39. N e4 K f8
40. N d6 K e7 41.
N b7 Q g8
42. Q d2
42. R h7! Q*h7?? 43. Q d8
mate
42 ... R c2 43. Q c2 Q h7
44. Q c5 K d7 45. Q d6 K c8 46. Q c6 K b8 47. N c5 B e8
48. Q e8 White is winning
42 ... R b6
43. R d1 Q c8 44.
N d6 Q d7 45. N f7 Q d2 46. R d2 K f7 47. c4 K e7 48. K c3
48 ... resigns with White in a winning position
- Unknown & Irregular opening moves
- Alekhines Greatest Games Bk 2
Game 9 Irregular Queen's Indian Defense Black: F
Marshall.
- 1. d4 Kt f5 2. c4
- 2 ... d5.
- 3. p*p Kt*p 4. e4 Kt f6 5. B d3 e5
- 6. p*p Kt g4 7. kt f3 kt c6
8. B g5! B e7 9. B*B Q*B 10. Kt c3 Kt(c6) e5*
- p 11. Kt*Kt Q*Kt?
12. Q d2 B d7,
13. Q e3
- 13 ... B c6
- 14. o-o-o o-o 15. f4 Q e6
16. e5 KR e8 17. KR e1 QR d8
- 18. f5 Q e2 19. Q g5 kt d5
20. f6 Q f8
- 21. B c4! Kt*Kt 22. R*R R*R
23. p*p! Kt*p ch 23. K b1 removing the saving check if he
had used B*kt 23 ... Q e8 24. e6 B e4 ch 25. K a1 f5 26.
e7 dis ch R d5 27. Q f6 Q f7 28. e8
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